November 23, 2011

The fourth (out of 8 total) Remixed pattern is now out to pre-orderers! Rumours fingerless mitts:

Before I go on, I just want to say now, so it doesn’t get buried in the post – now that half the patterns are out, I thought it would be a good time to start a Remixed knit-a-long! Head over to the ravelry forums to vote on which pattern you’d like to knit along (or for a more casual any-pattern Remixed knit-a-long) and to share your knitting progress!

Okay so, Rumours! They can be made with any weight yarn, and are custom fit to your hands. Above is my pair in recycled sport(ish) weight yarn, and below in bulky weight:

There are a few different options and variations you can choose from – like the 2-color version:

And there are two different top hand designs. The lace chevron design (below) is a bit too complex to work with bulky yarn, as it takes too many rows and stitches for a heavy weight gauge, so there’s a second, simpler hand design which you can see on the mitts above.

They are made top down, starting by working the top hand part sideways (using the sideways edge cast-on) and stopping when it fits perfectly around your hand. Then the thumb is started separately, joined with the hand, and the rest of the mitt is worked down through the wrist, using color coded stitch markers to keep track of the different twirling stitch designs and yarn-over lines:

There’s no one thing that’s hard or really complicated, but there are a lot of twisted stitches, decreases, yarn-overs, and triangles of garter stitch texture, all kind of swirling and flowing into each other… as long as you pay attention to what you’re doing and read the pattern well, they knit up pretty quickly.

One little detail I like – the twirling stitches turn into the bind-off in a nice flowing way:

And a cool thing for iPad users (which isn’t specific to this pattern or anything, I just got excited because the iPad is still new and exciting to me)… There’s a box in the pattern for filling in your numbers (row counts, stitch counts, etc) while making your first mitt, so the second in the pair will be identical – I used the Goodreader app to make an annotated copy and fill in all the spaces on the pdf, so cool! I know, iPad nerding out, doesn’t really have to do with this pattern or anything, but whatever, I just wanted to share…

Want to see my design process for these? I started out with some serious swatching, trying to reach a top hand part design that I was happy with… finally all my sketchy swatching led to the lace chevron design:

So then I cast on to turn that design into the top of a mitt, with my only plans for the rest of the piece being some kind of garter stitch thumb part, and some kind of swirling, yarn-over holes, and garter stitch element for the wrist. And then I wanted to finish it off with a sideways edge bind-off cuff bit… Here’s what that whole thing turned into:

So then I moved on to my second attempt, giving it an actual thumb piece, and making the swirls more extreme, designing the whole wrist part as I knit it… and sticking with that sideways cuff bottom bit:

After that was done, I decided to let that cuff bottom part go, it just wasn’t working – but the design I used on that bit in my second prototype ended up turning into the second hand design of the final pattern, so I think it worked out well! And then the final design stayed pretty similar to the wrist in that second prototype, just a few changes made to which bits are garter vs. stockinette. The final change was that I brought the garter thumb gusset over into the hand a bit instead of being a straight line… And the final design was born:

Yay! I’m super happy with it, I hope you like it too!

(For readers who don’t know – this pattern is part of my Remixed collection, which is available for pre-order now. It’s $16, there are 4 patterns so far, and there will be 8 total, plus yarn-making tutorials. Order it now to get the first 4, and then each of the remaining as they are finished – see the webpage for more details.)

You really are quite brilliant, Lee! I love the twisted stitches and all the different directions the mitts move in, I’ve never seen anything quite like it before! Can’t wait to give it a go.
Katie. xxx

http://www.leethal.net/ Lee

Thank you! I’m glad you like them! :)

http://www.facebook.com/ChaoticKaren Karen Vradelis

I bought this pattern set specifically for this pattern – so beautiful and fun! I’m going to end up printing out the whole thing (not just the last 4 pages) because I’m getting really hung up by the second twist and I’m hoping the pictures will help (Alas, no iPad and the light isn’t good enough @ my computer desk). I really like how it’s highlighting the colors of the handspun yarn I’m using!

http://www.leethal.net/ Lee

hmm, any specific questions I can help with? I’m excited to see your finished mitts in the handspun! (checked out the progress photos on ravelry – such pretty yarn!)

hazellucia

I’m seriously wanting to buy this ebook! I’m totally in love with Wild is the Wind and Freewheelin.

I remember getting a recycled sweater from here a while ago. I made some comfy baby blue legwarmers. they can be seen here: